UFC.com has a couple of features up covering Marcus Davis and Mike Swick. Good reads to get yourself jazzed for the fights.
From the Mike Swick piece, Swick talks about his last fight against Josh Burkman and what he did wrong :
Looking back I definitely should have let my hands go. That was the biggest regret that I had because I felt I could have knocked him out. And I wasn’t afraid to go to the ground either. I think I would have submitted Burkman on the ground as well. I just got into this whole thing of defending takedowns and not letting him do what he wanted to do and not letting him bully me around versus the mindset of just going in there and kicking his ass, like I usually have. I was in the wrong mindset.
And he talks about Davis:
Both Okami and Burkman are both better at takedowns than he is and Okami took me down but Burkman couldn’t. I think he (Burkman) tried like 18 times, and if Burkman couldn’t take me down I don’t think he (Davis) is gonna be super confident in his takedown ability, and he obviously doesn’t want a boring fight so he’s probably not gonna try it. But he might think he’s the guy that’s gonna beat me on the ground, and he feels really confident in his ground game from the interviews. He feels like he’s got a really good ground game and is stronger than me and better than me in wrestling, but if he thinks that, it’s just not true. I train with really good guys and I don’t believe that he’s even close to me on the ground in any area – wrestling, takedowns, takedown defense, jiu-jitsu. I agree that I haven’t shown my ground game a lot in the UFC, and I can see how people can get the misconception that I’m afraid of the ground and that maybe I’m weak and don’t have the jiu-jitsu, but I do and it’s one of my strongest things. So if he wants to take it to the ground, I think he’s gonna be a lot worse off. In his playbook, he should stick to what he’s best at.
For his part, Marcus Davis thinks he's got the edge in power and standup:
Personally I really like this matchup and think the winner will have earned a shot against Koscheck, Karo, or Diego Sanchez after this and be well on their way to a title shot. I think Swick is too well rounded for Davis, but agree with Marcus that he probably has a power edge.What I’m doing is, I’m betting that my chin holds up to what he has to dish out on me, and that his chin doesn’t hold up to what I can throw. If Mike is at all faster than me, it’s by just a little little bit. It’s not like he’s way faster than I am. He looked really fast and quick when he fought 185 pounders. He didn’t look very fast when he fought Josh Burkman. I’m much faster than Josh Burkman as far as my hands go. And I’m telling you, I’m going to be stronger than him . . . with him coming down to 170 and me being a natural 170-pound fighter, I’m going to be stronger, I’m going to hit harder and I’ve got the more pure technique as far as the hands go.
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